Friday, July 25, 2014

Moist & Chewy Cake - H-Mart: Cherry Hill, NJ

Moist & Chewy Cake - H-Mart: Cherry Hill, NJ

I've seen this package in a few Asian grocery shops and I had always passed it by. I'm not a fan of snack cakes, I always feel like they're really oily and processed, so these little fish-shaped sweets never appealed to me. I really don't know what caused me to finally buy them, but I'm very happy I did.

I absolutely love the packaging. Everything about it is thoroughly thought out and there are so many textural elements! Starting with the box itself, it has a faux kraft-paper texture and it features complimentary colors with a playful fish-cake theme. The overall layout and design is bubbly, bright, and the colors work very nicely together.

There are two ways to open this box. One way is to peel the front cover open, creating a little cardboard basket of-sorts, while the other is just to open the resealable tab-style flap on the side of the package. (Imagine the top of a cereal box.) I hate ripping the tops off of my packages, it's just a weird pet peeve of mine, so I opted for the resealable cereal box route.

This salmon-y one was my favorite.

Inside, the little cakes are wrapped with beautiful metallic pearl waxed paper! As if the lovely pastel and gold colors weren't eye catching enough with their pearly sheen, each bag had a uniquely adorable print. My favorite had to be this one with the paw prints and simple kitty illustration, but...

The other packages were really adorable as well. The champagne-gold paper was my favorite of the colors, and I had two of these in my package, but the kitty design is my hands-down favorite. (I'm not so secretly a crazy cat lady.)

I opened up the gold wrapping, since I had two, and inside there was a delighfully detailed fish-shaped snack cake. It might not be as precisely detailed as the fish pictured on the box, but you can easily tell what this cake is trying to mimic.

As expected, this snack cake is processed, just like Tastykakes and Hostess sweets that are readily available here in America, the cake smells sweet, oily, and chocolatey.

My first bite consisted of sweet pound cake, which was dense and oily, red bean paste, and chocolate flavoring. I'm not sure if there was chocolate mixed into the bean paste itself, or if the chocolate flavoring came from the chocolate details on the fish, but it tasted far better than I ever expected and you would definitely know that chocolate was hiding in there somewhere. .

The cake was moist and processed tasting, but it wasn't that bad. I feel like this is a little step up from a Krimpet or Tastykake, but it is still very unnatural and processed tasting. Towards the end of my little fishy there was some kind of chewy yellow confection that I couldn't suite place. It didn't taste like much, but it did add a bouncy chewy texture. Maybe this is a gummy or some kind of gelatin based filling? Or mochi? I'm not really sure, so I tried to google this stuff to find out, and...

Apparently this item has been discontinued! What a pity! I may not be a huge fan of the taste, but my boyfriend really enjoyed them and I absolutely loved the packaging. I might have to grab another package or two before they disappear from the shelves completely. These would also be really adorable to include my next giveaway.

If you are able to find a box of these before they disappear, I recommend scooping it up. The packaging is lovely, the snack itself is adorable, and if you like snack cakes that is just an added bonus.